Post Office Inquiry: Paula Vennells breaks down as she's accused of talking 'absolute rubbish'
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- Опубликовано: 23 май 2024
- Paula Vennells, under questioning from a lawyer acting on behalf of a number of subpostmasters, insisted she “loved” the Post Office before growing visibly upset and pausing to compose herself.
On her third day of evidence to the Horizon IT Inquiry, the former Post Office boss said she “believed” she was asking the right questions about the Horizon system but accepted she “may not have” as she was not an IT expert.
Sam Stein KC said: “Ms Vennells, you’re not stupid. You studied French, Russian, business as a degree. You then worked for well-known companies in the UK - Whitbread, Argos, others.
“You rose through the ranks of the Post Office to become its CEO. You were pushing forward under network transformation. You’ve been quoted as saying that you want and you see a future of the Post Office opening up more branches, 30,000 branches in the future.
“That was you, Ms Vennells, at the time. A vision you were expressing to everyone that asked about what you could see for the future. And yet here, all of these facts were adding up to there being a real problem, a really difficult problem to chew over, right the way through 2013.
“And you failed didn’t you? You failed to get into this, on your account, you failed to ask the right questions. You couldn’t be bothered, could you Ms Vennells? The risk was too great. Looking under that rock, you’re going to find a problem, it’s going to devastate the Post Office. Ruin it. And you couldn’t let that happen, could you Ms Vennells?”
The former chief executive said “I loved the Post Office”, after which she grew emotional and paused to compose herself.
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Let us remember who the real victims are here, and she isn't one of them.
Oh she IS. Don't forget that she had to hand back her CBE. Crucifying for her.
Lord be praised though, that she got to keep all the multi-million pound bonuses ..or otherwise she wouldn't have been able to give that £100 to the Church roof fund!
…and never will be. She’s got mates in high places. The good news is that when Shariah law has taken over the UK, she won’t stand a chance.
@@adriancoppin977 Toddle off to whatever dark corner of the internet you normally inhabit where such stupidity is acceptable.
@@Ian-lx1izbonuses plus multimillion pension.
Oh boo hoo every 5 mins so people feel sorry for her. She’ll be back home tonight counting her ill gotten cash. Unlike the real victims who lost everything.
Compulsive liar
she's not a compulsive liar, she's simply lying to save her own skin. which is why this sorry affair happened because she was saving her position at the company.
Absolute rubbish. Plenty of money and doesn’t care.
no more tears! enough is enough!! vennells has got more blubber than a whale!!!
Paula hasn’t got the ability to sweat
‘C’ Movie Actress 😖
A knighthood for Alan Bates.
Jail for her.
Full compensation for all the Postmasters.
This is one of the biggest corporate corruption scandals I can remember in a long time, and the hierarchy new about this right from the onset, a long jail term for them and large compensation for the postmasters needed.
Some of that compensation should come from the sale of her mansion and from any pension she gets from her time at the Post Office.
That won't do any good for the shares.
Also should be banned from Public service in the church also.
There is no jail time though. All these people suffered and this is JUST an inquiry no jail. Its scandalous. 😡
She's only crying because she's being exposed. She's crying for herself, and that is all.
Spot on. Crying because she's been rumbled, not because of the impact on others.
"...I never put the post office in front of the lives of the postmasters". This is a blatant lie.
With as many problems why did they not gather that something was very wrong.
Only one of so many other lies
That’s the cleverness creeping through: she’s not lying (technically not, but in reality: ‘yes’), because in her mind is held the plausible narrative that she was motivated by ‘some other unknown reason’, and she simply decided there & then that she didn’t put the PO before her victims, because she doesn’t ‘know’.
The mind of a snake would be less evil, if at all - a snake 🐍 just ‘is’.
How the sudden large number of discrepancies, in all the different Sub Postmasters accounts, didn’t put up a red flag to PO hierarchy is incomprehensible. They couldn’t all have their hand in the till, could they? The only common factor being the IT system. People should be held to account, by serving prison sentences for this shameful cover up.
@@garywilson1235& for every coverup that exhonerated themselves & ruined someone else’s life.
Wasn't upset when she lied about knowing the issues and when she sent innocent people to prison and ruined their lives.
And Fujitsu has just been given another govt. contract -
The ones who are dead cant cry either and shes sat there feeling sorry FOR HERSELF
Yes! The tears are much too late,
The Parliament/government UK needs to bring in laws to protect the consumers and the public, and more broadly, to protect everyone against this type of criminal activities and fraudulent activities by CEOs, board of directors, managers, fraud investigators, law firms, etc. Laws will make these criminals accountable for their actions in the uk and overseas !
They were sent to prison??? Excuse me I’m an Aussie.
Please, please, if there is any justice - this dreadful woman must be held accountable
The fact that there were 12,000-15000 calls per month to the help desk by postmasters about the faulty Horizon system, and the callers were lied to, and told that no one else had been reporting problems, tells me that the Post Office was engaged in a huge cover up. Vennells must have known.
Lock her up.
Starmer let off Jimmy Savile as proven by MoS expose' by Dan Hodges. Savile got away with it. Rich & woke get away with it a lot. So Will Vennells get a life sentance?
I presume you just forgot to mention "after a fair trial", right? Otherwise, it's hard to sound more like Trump if you tried.
@@MikeAG333trump 2024 😊🖕
You mean like the Post Office did??
@@Coneman3 Look, I'm no defender of the Post Office, but they didn't lock anyone up. They prosecuted people (unfairly and possibly illegally), but the British judicial system locked people up, not the PO.
if she cried until the day she dies, her tears would only be a puddle compared to the lake cried by sub postmasters and their families
But if you look at when she cried it was, I believe, after the person posing the questions pointed out that she was afraid to acknowledge the truth because of her love of the post office. It sounds ridiculous to us, but that was what made her cry - the post office!
@@peterdunn3564I
I hope she loves the prison service as much.
I think it was her PO salary that she loved and the prestige of her position. I wonder what her salary is. Perhaps she could donate her pension to those who have suffered destitution and heartbreak?
@@jenniferfirkins1390£700k a year apparently, plus the bonus they all made from the overpayment from the Subpostmasters shortfall, which there never was-about £3m allegedly…
That would be the first step to being genuine, and truly sorry!
She's just trying to come across as a CEO who has been misled by her colleagues - trying to save face. She fought tooth & nail against her postmasters. She deserves to go to jail.
Not to mention breaking her promises to parliment and going back on her word she had every opportunity to do the right thing she chose not to she could avoided all of this if she had bloody listened and done something. Her crocodile tears are a slap in the face and an insult to the subpostmasters who actually suffered and had their lives destroyed
Tooth and nail. Exactly. Tooth and flippin' nail. Disingenuous, underhand creep and with clearly not a shred of compassion. Sickening.
But she has God on her side /s
I’m not an expert on IT systems. NEITHER WERE THE WRONGLY CONVICTED! The irony is off the charts here. She needs jail time, they all bloody do.
Or the IT ‘experts’ at Fujitsu
Didn't they notify the PO? @@john-paulscott3009
0
She earned millions while working for the Post Office. She should be made to pay the money back to her victims.
Definitely
But many are dead now.
And sell everything she has, to pay back the post masters that ended up in prison.
@@alidabaxter5849they have family members
She’d cry a lot more and real tears if she had to pay her money to the Post masters.
Think how many postal workers did nothing wrong and broke down for real.
If this woman does not see jail after bullying innocent people then everyone in this room is as guilty.
Not only her though, she is 'the buck stops here' person, there are a few others who are just as if not more, culpable than she is.
@@IrishSchaller yes, she has obviously been thrown under the bus to some degree, but she was more than happy to assist in the prosecutions.
In my eyes the blame runs via various MPs and the Monarch as nothing happens in government without the monarchs approval or disapproval
Spot on.
She'll be protected by some 'rule' or other
her defence team will probebly argue that she wont get a fair trial in court because of all the publicity this has attracted, she needs locking up
Breaks down because she feels sorry for herself, and not for the Post Office Horizon systems victims, which she pursued with a vengeance through the courts.
You didn't look under the Rock, because you didn't want to see what was there.
The KC, is 100% Spot on.
She went for the postmasters and postmistresses with venom. She had absolutely no qualms about destroying them. Shame on her.
How true.
She literally has no shame. To ask her to be shameful is extremely hopeful. One of the most highly qualified and business experienced CEO in the land. She cries because she is frustrated with being told she's wrong. Something that's never happened to her. She is deceptive and cold. That much is clear in regards her consistent history up to being found out.
She’s a compulsive liar she’s blaming others for her own incompetence she has to go to jail and her pension has to be stopped she is venomous
And more crocodile tears, for herself.
Her Husband was an IT expert for Gods sake.
Exactly. I have no doubt she told him what is going on with Horizon and he told her. She decided to ignore it or worse.
Hundreds of Postmasters all started stealing from the Post office at the same time!!!!....just after the commencement of a new System starting and no alarm bells rang in the heads of the People in charge....Do me a Favor!!!
Exactly, total denial and B/S
Exactly you said it in a,nutshell they are completely wicked
She's a bully that's been called out.
Who on earth decided she was qualified for this job?
That's the thing, her lies contradict her qualifications. There's no way she was this incompetent, she's a blatant liar.
Best Question to Date: As Yet Unanswered.....
Like most workforces .incompetence prevails
she's qualified to smirk and lie
That really needs to be investigated into...just who were the persons who suggested, interviewed, rated & approved her appointment.
Put this women in jail all those post masters suffered or are no longer with us.
She covered up one of the biggest scandles of recent times.
Guilt is shown all across her face.
JAIL with immediate effect.
It will be corporate responsibility.
You don't think we should hold a trial beforehand?
If she doesn't go to prison for at least 5 years, people can see the two tier system we have in the UK.
Ladies and gentlemen a compulsive liar
With plenty of cash.
No. A deliberate, unrepentant, merciless liar.
Congenital liar . The worst sort .
Should be crying in jail, but will instead be crying all the way to her large bank account and pension.
She wasn't crying when she was collecting her huge salary ...........and bonuses ! Prison prison prison
Self serving, callous, cold and believes her own lies. She has no shame and the tears will never repair the damage she did to so many innocent peoples lives
Should be behind bars.
If you think, for one moment, she is going to jail for this, then you don't know how the establishment in this country works!
Prosecutions went up 2000percent when horizon came in…
Ask her how she didn’t spot that…
That fed the paranoia of those in charge, who believe everyone is on the thieve, likely as they are/were, and are of a class that don't like sharing! Add in the ability to wield the full weight of the state with impunity, it appealed to their ego's too......this is a snapshot for me to how the state actually operates across the board, very unsettling.
bang on...how on earth!!!!
@@mattp7136 fair point..,but these people (one of whom is a friend), were background checked to the max…
Stevie Wonder would have seen that
I was saying this morning that the police need to take a closer look at the horizon employees, vennells is vile but this was happening a long time before her tenure.
Crocodile tears. She should be prosecuted for gross negligence if at all possible. 😡
She did her best? Well if you are incompetent and unqualified then you are going to fail. Relying on other people is a cop out and indicates she was not up the job. She lied and denied her own written correspondence. Horizon was flawed from 1999.
That's the same excuse used at Nuremburg
She knows she 's talking rubbish. So do we.
shes being schooled by her barristers etc
Lying through her teeth. Her money is not affected
Finally someone is questioning her properly. The others have been ridiculously soft in their questioning.
How on earth was this woman appointed to a job with such responsibilities?
Box ticking perhaps!
For a woman of the cloth the lord is not on her side and neither is the country when does inquest is finished this woman should go to jail for a long long time
Don't trust anyone connected to any religion. They're all corrupt
the victims are the Postmasters, who she persecuted, stole from and drove to suicide
Ignorance is not defence in law only mitigation,jail her
I think that's the card she's playing. Ignorance and stupidity... Hoping that she can't go to jail for that rather than blatant lying and cover up.
She's crying for herself ,not the actual victims of this wrongdoing. I hope she is prosecuted along with the other hierarchy who allowed this to happen and even worse attempted to cover it up.
These people should face criminal charges and if convicted lose their pensions as well as serve any sentence handed down
I expect she consoles herself by looking at the £4.5m salary slips gained while these people were being victimised.
True
And the silence speaks volumes. Another person promoted well above their pay grade.
A disgrace. As a CEO and as a human being.
Her Bank Accounts should be scrutinised.
Look for payments from Fujitsu Corp and their associates
This woman and her cronies should be paying the people who were wrongly blamed for this fiasco 😡😡😡😡
Yeah, they should. But it is the taxpayer paying the compensation. Despite all the millions she received, for presiding over this farce.
Sorry Derek, not just paying these people back for what was stollen from them, but jailed for life, given their actions drove so many to suicide! That is Murder in my book!
👏🏾👏🏾👍🏾
If somebody suggests that over 900 of your postmasters are embezzling (according to the software), your first reaction should be to look at the software, NOT bring 900 prosecutions against your staff.!! FFS!!!
And your second reaction should be to look at the checks carried out when they were employed and ask why, if they were untrustworthy, they were given the job in the first place.
Ikr. Surely your first thought would be, that doesn't sound right. All at the same time, after a new system?? If she is as smart as she obviously thinks she is, those are the first questions anyone with half a brain would be asking. She didn't care, she didn't want to know. Still doesn't.
Thank you
Her excuse is the post office was so big how did she know how many? How she gets away with this I have no idea? 😡
What's awful is that, had it not been for the dogged determination of others, despite all her apologies, she'd still be swanning about in her religious robes in her multi-million pound home while all of those postmasters either rot in jail or struggled alone to rebuild their lives.
Absolutely incompetent. How the hell did she get such a high powered job??
Waterboarding wouldn't get the truth out of this monster; she believes her own lies.
yes.
empathy deleted human being... there is no other explanation.
Because torture gets the truth out of no one. A tortured person will tell you what you want to hear, not the truth.
I know someone who worked as a post mistress, and went through hell. This has changed her life forever, and she now struggles every day with life. She became bankrupt, and although now employed she is unable to do more than three days. Paula Vennals needs to be in prison as this happened in her watch.
Common currency with this late Government. Perhaps the Post Office SubPostmasters can put some candidates up for the election?
How has this woman held an accountable position in a large organisation
Crocodile tears. She must go to jail for fraud and destroying so many lives and livelihoods.
This is a woman who has never been held accountable for her wrong actions. I bet she doesnt even understand why she is on trial.
It is enqiry, she is not on trial. That may come later.
No she won’t, none of them ever do. A few tears a few empty apologies and then it’s back to her comfortable lifestyle, no shame amongst the elite
She recovered from those tears pretty quickly didnt she
turns on and off like a tap
Most sociopaths can do that.
Possibly accidentally dropped the sliced onion.
Crocodile tears ?
No remorse and no accountability...this is why the country is in the state it is currently in!
She paid herself a bonus with the money she stole from employees and then prosecuted for theft.
She was the 'Boss' being paid the Big Bucks...the responsibility is hers. Simple.
You are so right.
Tears of self-pity are rarely appealing. Miss Vennells has behaved appallingly both in office and at this inquiry and must now face the consequences of her actions.
Never going to happen, she will be protected by the civil servants
In preparation for this three day event, Vennell's would have undertaken dozens of practice training cross examinations with her lawyers to iron out how to present herself and deflect the accusations during the inquiry. She knows that it's not working as she is constantly breaking down in tears, whilst we can see that she was either asleep at the wheel or she is lying about her time in charge of the Post Office!
Either one, its obvious to see that her priority was always to look after herself, her reputation, her performance bonuses & pension top ups as she happily sat back and watched people lose their livelihoods whilst some of them lost their lives.
She now needs to be investigated by the Police on criminal charges and if/ when she is found guilty ... she needs to be thrown into prison. Every penny that she has taken in bonuses must be paid back in full and with interest as she has fraudulently stolen them from the Post Office/ British Tax Payers!
She loved the power and the salary, its sickening to watch her
Vennells is also not answering the questions. She is merely answering the questions that she wants to be asked ...
Those tears are not for the hundreds who suffered under her leadership.
It’s because she has been caught and questioned
Exactly!!! She is crying for herself. Not for anyone affected. Feeling sad for the Post Office organisation not for what has gone wrong or how lives have been ruined. She has only ever protected the Post Office and herself not anything else.
If justice is not seen to be carried out to the fullest, I think with the current distrust in government and its health lies there will be a massive public uprising that they have never seen before
She has to serve jail time. She’s not fooling me.
How on earth does anyone rise to the top and burst into tears when questioned. Very unprofessional like her behaviour towards her victims
She is a L I A R., L I A R,, SHE KNEW, AND SHE WANTED TO PUNISH THE POST MASTERS, ONLY IN IT FOR HER SELF.
MISSY GOODY, THIS IS A MINISTER , CROCODILE TEARS
Let people down? This woman is a serial killer. Why is she even allowed to speak?
You failed, just admit it. The longer you drag it out, the worse it will be for EVERYBODY!!!
No chance will she admit wrong doing.
She does not care about anybody else. If you have not worked that out by now, get help.
Lying through her teeth.
OMG she is spouting outright lies and needs to be held to account. She deserves a very long prison sentence. She will probably get a slap on the wrist and another directorship.
Deluded then and still believes her own fantasy. She appears to be struggling to see just how wrong and blinkered she was. Any averagely intelligent person would see the feedback from the people on the ground and have it investigated with swift understanding that it was a faulty system and not a sudden huge increase in fraud.
Here we go again that crocodile has been busy .
Incompetent? Delusional? Dishonest with no integrity? Poor judgement? All of these?
No. Deliberate, .merciless, lying con woman. if i were merely incompetent, i would have handed back the money. But she kept it, and continued lying. That is deliberate.
Not at all! Every decision made was with full intent
And she's supposed to be deeply religious...
Jail this creature!
Just lie after lie I hope she never sees the light of day again.
Difficult to watch when you know the post office 'investigators' were giving the sub postmasters a harder time than she's getting. She's sobbing through self-pity not sorrow for the persecuted.
Excellent point. Nor did the sub postmasters get the legal representation she has at her disposal.
Nobody has gone into her home ransacking it for hidden money, which was what happened to innocent sub posters. Bully boys visited a woman in hospital, suffering a mental breakdown, because they didn't believe even the doctors. This woman is inhuman.
Tears are manipulation. Nothing more.
many criminals cry when caught
It’s certainly not because she is sorry.
Yes, it’s self-pity
Thatcher, Theresa May.
It's a shame that some leaders are afraid or not assertive enough to ask questions and demand answers, but being cowardly to let others take the blame...so shameful! 😖
Interesting how Paula Vennells is looking at the floor and her eyes are darting everywhere but at the questioner? Any Psychologist or policeman would automatically equate that with telling Lies.
Simply not credible, obfuscating, deflecting, diverting, acting as if she doesn’t understand the question and portrays herself as almost never informed.
Reminds you of the German soldiers in the war didn’t know about the holocaust until they were caught she didn’t know because she didn’t won’t to know
👏🏾👏🏾👍🏾
What's most likely... Taking back handers from fujitsu and protecting her fat bonus payments through a cunning scheme they all worked up to hang blame on the "little guys"
@@alanpoole6064 Except she did know. The emails and documentation prove that
Liar. In plain sight.
When are we going to see this wicked, evil woman jailed?
Self pity & crocodile tears from a compulsive liar, she should repay every penny she was paid & then jailed
Lies, contradictions, cover-ups. Shocking.
No amount of Money will compensate.
If the Judges don’t jail Her then there’s no reason to justice.
No help will be given.
This isn't a court of law. Its an enquiry. Unfortunately what you advocate is not possible at this time.
Watching years ago I would say that she just wasn’t prepared to listen! High handed!
She’s a disgrace and example of how an individual can secure a position of authority without any comprehension of what leadership involves. She still demonstrates that she will deflect and defer blame to others to save herself. For this reason she should be held to account
Poor woman, she was only paid 14,000 pounds a week to not know anything. She was probably far too busy calculating her bonuses and pension schemes to do her job!
Those who let her continue are guilty too. But she belongs in gaol. No parole.
Oh look shes crying because she was found out again
Tears of “oh bugger, I’ve been made to look guilty”
This person has blood on their hands
If she says she was not an IT expert so why should she not ask questions? She is lying.
Well neither am I , or most of us watching this.
You don't have to be mensa intelligent to know what should have been queried and bought to light.
Cover up, short and simple.
Absolute disgrace.
She's not as stupid as people think, just totally complicit.
and you don't need a weather man to tell you it's raining!
I am an older American and this case is shocking to me, but then again, GREED is all around the world.
R.I.P. to all the people whose lives were ruined and to those who are no longer on this earth because of this horrendous tragedy.
I think it's shocking to anybody around the world, who has any morals. This woman was raised about 20 miles from me. And she has never done any harm to me, personally.
But my goodness, she has deeply offended my sense of justice. As is the case, for another 1.2 million who signed the petition, to remove her CBE. And normally there's at least some small support for an accused person, even when the majority are against them.
But here - NOBODY (from the uninvolved general public) is supporting them. Every YT comment condemns them. That's how uniformly they have disgusted people.
And she's STILL lying, in a weak effort to avoid criminal prosecution. Even though not even a senior businesswoman (Moya Green - CEO of Royal Mail, whilst Vennells was CEO of the Post Office) believes her. They'd been close, but Moya Green sent Vennells some shocked text messages, saying she (Green) no longer believed or supported Vennells.
If my car keeps refusing to start I don’t have to be a mechanic to know there’s something wrong with it.
Happy to take the big salary and bonus. Didn't give a **** about anyone else apart from herself. Found out and now coughing and spluttering. Prison time for her and her chums.
Sir Ed Davey Also Didn’t Ask the Right Questions when approached by Alan Bates, instead he fobbed him off. Well done Lord Arbuthnot for championing the Sub Postmasters.
To be fair, Sir Ed did ask the questions and was given lies in response. His mistake was to believe the PO
You are the top person, you are responsible!!!! Harry Truman had a sign on his desk as president: "The Buck Stops Here"!!!
It’s more than responsible. It’s “accountable”.
She failed in her role as CEO but she was quite happy to take the salary. She has an occasional outburst of crocodile tears but in my opinion she is responsible for all the hurt she has caused. She has blood on her hands. Jail time is a suitable reward now for her and her, equally callous side kick. The only thing she is sorry about is getting found out.
Why is the public inquiry being held before a criminal case , surely the criminal case should have priority it’s just delaying the inevitable, what will a public inquiry achieve ?
She's crying because she knows she's in deep, deep trouble.
She' probably NOT going to be in deep, deep trouble. When the ehquiry has finnished she will dissapear quietly into obscurity to enjoy the spoils of her very lucrative pensions and invetsments .... for the rest of her days.
No. It is pure manipulation. She has no remorse, nor fear, nor mercy.